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Pat Tillman

News about Pat Tillman, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. More

Pat Tillman walked away from a lucrative career in the National Football League to join the military and fight in Afghanistan, where he was ultimately killed by friendly fire in an incident that was initially covered up.

Born in San Jose on Nov. 6, 1976, Mr. Tillman was raised in California but left for Arizona in 1994 to attend Arizona State University and play for its football team. At 5 foot 11 inches tall, he was relatively small for a linebacker, but played the position so well that as a senior he was voted the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year.

After graduating, he entered the 1998 NFL draft and was signed by the Arizona Cardinals. He played safety for the Cardinals.

Four years later, in May of 2002, he turned down a contract offer of $3.6 million from the team to enlist in the U.S. Army. He told friends and family that he enlisted because he was deeply affected by the 9/11 attacks.

Mr. Tillman joined the elite Rangers unit of the Army, and after training was deployed to Iraq and then Afghanistan. On April 22, 2004, he was killed by U.S. forces while on patrol outside the Taliban-infested village of Sperah, not far from the border of Pakistan.

The Army's Special Operations Command initially reported that Mr. Tillman was killed by enemy gunfire, news that led to an outpouring of grief across the nation, and awarded him the Purple Heart and Silver Star and a posthumous promotion. But an investigation by the Department of Defense revealed that he had in fact been killed by his fellow soldiers.

In 2006, the Defense Department opened a criminal investigation into the death, and Tillman's family testified at a congressional hearing that they had been lied to and deceived. The Army laid most of the blame for the cover-up on Philip Kensinger, a three-star general, now retired, who led the Army's special operations forces after the 9/11 attack, censuring him for a "failure of leadership" and accusing him of lying to investigators.-- Anahad O'Connor, Aug. 1, 2007